B-Published! B-Metro’s First-ever Fiction Writing Contest

Are you a writer, a storyteller, an avid reader? Have you ever dreamed of seeing your own written work published? Are you the next J.K. Rowling? Boy do we have news for you! We’re excited to announce B—Published, our first-ever fiction contest. It’s simple: We know you have stories, and we want you to share them.

Divisions and Prizes

There are three divisions: student (ninth–12th grade), college, and adult. There will be one winner selected from each division to receive a $500 cash prize, and the three winning pieces will be published in B-Metro’s January 2015 issue. B-Metro will also host a reading event where each winner will get the opportunity to share his or her story with an audience.

Rules and Entry

The contest will be judged by a panel of writers, wordsmiths, and literary geeks. The deadline for entry is Oct. 15, 2014. Entries can be emailed to bpublishedcontest@gmail.com or mailed to 1314 Cobb Lane, Birmingham, AL, 35205. See below for a list of contest rules.

1. Any works submitted to the B-Metro B—Published contest must be original content of the submitting writer and must be fiction.

2. No work that has been professionally published will be considered.

3. Submitted works must not exceed a 3,000-word limit.

4. No works submitted by writers, columnists, or persons otherwise affiliated with B-Metro will be considered.

Would love to enter your contest but I live in N. Alabama. May I submit? I am a member of Southern
Women’s Writer Review Journal and just completed a reading with them this past weekend. Will that allow me to submit?

When you say the divisions are student, college, and adult – do you mean that to apply to the age of the writer who is submitting the work? Or the level of reader/audience? So for example, if I’m an adult writing a story targeted for pre teens, would I be submitting in adult or student division?

Are there any formatting requirements? Meaning, does the story have to be in a certain font type/size, have specific margins or specific headers? Also, do you care about types of attachments to the submission email? Do you even want it as an attachment or does it have to be in the body of the email?

Jonathan–formatting does not matter, as if your story is published, we will re-format it for print. You can submit your story either in the body of an email or as an attachment. For attachments, we prefer something that can be edited (e.g. a word doc, but not a PDF.) Great questions!

Hello, I graduated from undergrad a year and a half ago. However, I’m currently enrolled in a writing class at UAB. Should I submit as an “adult” or a “student”? I’m not full-time at the university, so I really don’t know where I fall.

Hello, I have published a story in UAB Aura Lit Magazine, I was wondering if that was considered a professional publication? Also, are you looking for submissions closer to the 3,000 limit or flashfic (500 words or less)?

Hi Kim–we are open to all story lengths, whether that be the full 3,000 words or something considerably shorter. As for being published in UAB Aura Lit Magazine, we recommend that you submit your story anyway, but please include the disclosure that your story has been in this publication. We will leave the decision to consider it or not up to our judging panel.

I neglected to indicate my division when I submitted my entry Oct. 15. I sent the division info to the contest email address last week, but wanted to direct y’all to that just in case it got lost among late entries.

I realize the redundancy at this point, but have the winners been notified? A friend of mine entered and it has been very frustrating to hear that the results keep getting pushed back to the next month and the next. Not a great start for the first ever fiction writing contest.

Allison–our winners have not yet been notified. Our judging panel is currently making their final decisions. We apologize that this has taken longer than expected; with so many quality entries, our judges are having a hard time choosing! Thanks for understanding.

Hi Ellie–we apologize again for the delay and assure you the contest is still on. While we had originally planned to publish the winners in January, we have had to push it back a few issues. The winning stories will now be published in our April 2015 issue (next month!). We appreciate your patience.